1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to thermosetting powder coating compositions and more particularly to acrylic powder coating compositions containing acid functionalized acrylics.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Powder coating compositions for use in painting are extremely desirable. Such coating compositions greatly reduce and can even eliminate the organic solvents used in liquid paints. When the powder coating composition is cured by heating, little, if any, volatile material is given off to the surrounding environment. This is a significant advantage over liquid paints in which organic solvent is volatilized into the surrounding atmosphere when the paint is cured by heating.
Carboxyl functional acrylic based powder coatings offer many potential advantages relative to other types of powder coatings including the capability of providing hard, chemically resistant and exteriorly durable films. Additionally, when properly formulated, these acrylic powder coatings can provide excellent corrosion, stain and detergent resistance as well as forming coatings which when exposed to high temperatures have good non-yellowing characteristics. Examples of such powder coatings are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,021,504 to Conrad and U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,111 to Pettit et al.
While acid functional acrylic based powders have many potential advantages, they do suffer from some product limitations. The inherently high viscosity of high Tg (&gt;40.degree. C.) acid functional acrylic resins makes them difficult to process in typical powder extruders, resulting in poor mixing and relatively poor flow and film smoothness. The high viscosity of the acrylic resins, together with the poor mixing capability of such high Tg materials, can give poor pigment dispersion during extrusion processing, resulting in lower gloss coatings with less than optimum hiding power. Finally, acrylic powders in general have poor flexibility as evidenced by low impact and bend resistance.
Other thermosetting acid functional powder coatings such as polyesters generally have somewhat better flexibility than acrylics, but certain uses for these materials also require improved impact and bend resistance.